CARACAS-With their country gripped by an economic crisis, Venezuelans lost half an hour of sleep early Sunday as their clocks were moved forward to save power on President Nicolas Maduro's order.
At 2:30 am local time, the oil-dependent South American nation shifted its time ahead by 30 minutes - to four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.
The move, announced in mid-April, is part of a package of measures the OPEC member nation is pursuing to cope with a crippling electricity shortage.
Maduro's socialist government has also allowed rolling blackouts and reduced public sector work weeks to two days a week, and ordered schools to close on Fridays.
Maduro has blamed the El Nino weather phenomenon for the lack of rain that has reduced the lakes at Venezuela's hydroelectric dams to oversized puddles. The drought, the most severe in 40 years, has especially affected the El Guri dam, which provides 70 percent of Venezuela's electricity.
In announcing the time change, Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza said the nighttime use of lighting and air conditioning was especially draining for the power grid. "It'll be simple to move the clock forward a half hour - this will allow us to enjoy more daylight, and it won't get dark so early," he said.
Maduro's late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, added the unusual half-hour time change in December 2007 also with the goal of saving power. Chavez died in 2013.
Speaking in a national broadcast on the eve of International Workers' Day, Maduro decreed a 30 percent increase in the minimum wage. In the late Saturday presentation he also called on his followers to join May Day rallies in Caracas.
While the wage hike may seem substantial, given Venezuela's triple-digit inflation rate that brings the amount to the equivalent of $40 a month at the official exchange rate, or just $14 a month at the black market rate. The decree, which came into effect on Sunday, includes pay raises for public workers, pensioners and members of the military.
Once-booming Venezuela, which has the world's largest proven oil reserves, has plunged into economic chaos as global crude prices have collapsed. Its economy has been in recession since 2013.
Venezuelans face acute shortages of such basics as toilet paper thanks to the scarcity of dollars needed for imports.
The government imposed currency controls in 2003 in an effort to crack down on a bustling black market in dollars. With most of Venezuela's hard currency revenue coming from oil exports, the lower oil prices make dollars even harder to get than before the crisis.
Maduro blames the country's crisis on an "economic war" waged by capitalists, and has vowed to press on with the socialist "revolution" launched by Chavez in 1999.
But the president's political opposition - emboldened by strong electoral gains in January - says mismanagement is to blame for the power crisis as well as for shortage of food and basic household goods.
The opposition has been pushing to drive Maduro from office since they took control of the legislature in January.
On Saturday, opponents said they gathered nearly ten times the roughly 200,000 signatures needed to begin organizing a referendum to oust Maduro.
If the electoral board verifies the signatures, the opposition will then have to collect four million more for the board to organize the vote. Opponents are racing to hold a vote before the end of the year, because after January 2017 a successful recall vote would just transfer power to Maduro's vice president rather than trigger new elections. A recent Venebarometro poll indicated that more than two thirds of Venezuelans want Maduro to leave office.